Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a
new series from Agrarian Trust and our contributors exploring the human
side of land transition. Stay tuned for monthly posts from diverse
voices, including farmers of all ages and backgrounds.

We’re pleased to present our first story from Darby Weaver, a
writer and farmer with more than a decade of experience growing and
moving in and out of Biodynamic farms in the Southeast and Northeast and
teaching holistic and ecological methods. Her most recent project finds
her in a tiny house on 20 acres in Northern Vermont where she is
developing an Agroecology system with her husband, Elliot Smith.

With snowshoes, I’ve been able to explore every aspect of my new
property in Wolcott, Vermont. The cold temperatures and glistening snow
drifts feel like a different planet from my first visit here in the
early days of June. Buying this piece of land was the culmination of a
ten year long dream my husband and I shared as we raised crops and
livestock in the Southeastern United States. To think that all of those
vegetables, markets, evenings shared in the Appalachian hills, and lists
made would lead to such a beautiful place seems like the wrong answer
to an improbable equation.

As young farmers raised in middle class families that were
disconnected from the land, we’ve had to build all of these things from
our imaginations, with our hands and hearts and support from those who
love us. We’ve had to reintroduce ourselves to the natural world and
enroll in her difficult and unforgiving curriculum. Our days observing
and working the fields were met with evenings learning how to run a
business. We’ve built things, sold things, shared things, lost things,
and now we’ve situated ourselves on this 20-acre heifer pasture, primed
to do it all again.

Driving along the country roads, I pass old dairies and farms that no
longer house livestock or cultivate crops. Open pastures with log
cabins dot the hillsides, and I wonder what it was like here before the
farmers left the fields. Barns with unbelievable craftsmanship and
failing roofs stand starkly like modern art as they slowly give up their
struggle against gravity. The elders speak of the introduction of the
bulk tanks and tractors, and almost no one keeps a team of horses
anymore. This area in Vermont actually does have a resurgence of
localized agriculture, and that is what drew us here. Throughout rural
Georgia and many other forgotten places in America, so many of our
agricultural traditions have been lost to monoculture, grocery stores,
and the commodification of our food system. The relics of a time lived
among the productive nature of the landscape have become vacation
settings for those who can afford a beautiful view.

Agriculture today has been modeled by humanity on the factory systems
we’ve utilized to harvest natural resources and build our material
world. Thousands of miles of delegated acreage is planted using
corporate technology, and concentrates are used to fertilize, kill
pests, and feed hungry roots. The system runs on an exploited workforce
of undocumented and migrant workers who face inhumane conditions and are
scarcely compensated for their work. Everything has been adapted to be
more efficient, streamlined and simplified, more profitable, with
minimal concern or consideration for external forces. Large amounts of
water are spread throughout these cropped fields, and all manner of
applied materials are flushed into the watershed. Where livestock are
concerned, animals are raised in tight quarters being fed just enough to
meet their anticipated gains and their damp, dark lives breed stress,
suffering, and the accumulation of unprecedented amounts of waste.

Walking along the old fence lines that used to keep the cattle in, I
can feel the historic pull of the industrial world slowly dismantling
the communities that at one time filled these valleys and hillsides with
commerce, artistry, and trades. I can almost see the tools and
technologies evolving out of step with the human body over time and into
designs that take their toll on the people, resources, and the
environment. As fertility became a pour-over elixir, it was given a
price tag, and these magic potions raised deep green stalks from the
ground with limited nutrients and flavor but manageable and predictable
productivity. As the machines evolved in their fields, flat grids of one
species became the norm, and nature fled these scenes in search of the
harmony and homeostasis of biological diversity. Our food began to
develop a machine’s consciousness, and this sentience began to imprint
on our own collective mind.

Today the grocery store is filled with aisles and aisles of products
that can scarcely be considered food. As the definition for consumables
continues to be degraded by cost-cutting additives and flavorings, our
youth are being raised so far away from the soil that asking them to
know the difference between nutrition and addiction is an absurd
expectation. Even the fruits and vegetables beautifully lined up under
the timed sprinklers have become shallow interpretations of what crops
grown within a living ecology used to be. It is also a growing trend in
our modern world where grocery stores containing any matter of whole,
unprepared foods are completely absent in areas where disenfranchised
people have suffered under the controls of a white-dominated, oppressive
economic system of governance.

Where grocery stores are concentrated in an area, they have developed
a hierarchy of privilege with the most “health” oriented stores ruling
the roost. With the influx of boutique-style grocers like Whole Foods
Market, our culture is lulled into the convenience, comfort, and plastic
wrapped options of a retail chain claiming to have the wellbeing of the
planet and its shoppers in mind. Often times these mega chains become
direct competition to the local farmers markets, and their hours and
offerings are too good to pass up when compared to the tight schedule
and limited wares of those who make a simple living on the land. The
farmers markets themselves are mostly marketed to the upper class
cultures of a given region, and these individuals struggle to make the
extra effort to support local artisans as a weekly ritual. The farmers
market instead becomes a form of entertainment for privileged families
with the farmers and artisans often being treated like performers. The
privilege to afford a diet comprised entirely of farmers market products
is not shared by all. In certain cases, the farmers themselves cannot
even afford the foods they put on their tables to sell.

Shoppers who are aware of the harmful practices of conventional
agriculture take great security in packaging covered in labels making
promises about how it all went down. The Organic label when applied to a
bag of Brussels sprouts or a bag of corn chips is enough to encourage
someone to pay a little bit extra for what they feel is some security of
quality and freedom from toxic chemicals. Unfortunately, for this very
reason the Organic label and all other agricultural labels are under
constant attack by industries hoping to reshape the rules and elbow
their way into increased profits. Over time the label degrades and loses
its initial meaning. What is sold as Organic today is a far cry from
what the label was made for, and many people support operations and
consume materials they would not if there was true transparency.

Meanwhile, farmers are finding it difficult to make a living on the
dwindling prices of food. They struggle to compete with the large
conventional operations who have become indebted and indefinitely tied
to corporations and large-scale co-ops. As much of rural America is
being abandoned by agrarian communities that can no longer prosper on
the land, it is simultaneously being bought up by people and businesses
with excess wealth. The result is a rural landscape that has become
gentrified. Farmers who may be interested in returning to these
communities are being priced out of owning land. People of color and
indigenous people who, in many cases, carry the generational trauma of
being forced off of their native lands and forced to work land for
others, have the added hurdle of operating within a white-dominated farm
and real estate world where an astonishing 98% of the farmland in the
United States is owned by white people.

These hurdles make land access an incredible challenge for people of
color and indigenous people. Often times these communities are forced to
purchase or operate on land that has little to no agricultural value.
They must spend much of their time remediating it before they are able
to truly grow and prosper from it. While there is affordable land to be
found in rural America, the white-dominant culture of these generally
poor and underserved communities make for an unsafe environment for any
kind of cultural or racial diversity. In general the agricultural lands
of the United States have been subject to topsoil loss through
aggressive tillage regimes, toxic build-up from fertilizers and
pesticides, and the overall vitality loss associated with the
devastating and short-sighted separation of livestock production from
crop production.

Sitting on the porch of my tiny house and looking over the south
facing hills, it feels easy to rest in the uneasiness of the mounting
challenges of our time. There have been many instances along this
incredible journey of land stewardship where I’ve let the thought touch
my heart that maybe sitting in an office all day and watching YouTube
videos when no one is looking might actually be an easier path. Besides,
not everyone is supposed to be a farmer, and what makes me assume that
my purpose here must be so wrought with hardship and complexity? I have
to remind myself that there is nothing easy about sitting in an office
all day, which is precisely how the fields called to me in the first
place.

I am also reminded almost daily of the incredible efforts people in
the world today are making towards harmonizing our modern society with
the intelligence and regenerative faculties of the natural world. While a
lot of our more destructive current practices reveal exactly where we
are as a species, so much incredible innovation and ecological design
are sprouting out from every state in our country in response. These
small awakenings have become large in some places, and the imaginal
cells of this butterfly are emerging within the caterpillar of our
outdated industries just in time to transform them.

The births and rebirths of Regenerative Agriculture have many forms
including Biodynamics, Agroforestry, Permaculture, and the philosophy of
Agroecology. Organizations like The Real Organic Project are pulling
our awareness towards transparency in labeling and getting our
priorities back into the soil where they belong. Inspirational stories
are blooming from groups like the international La Via Campesina, Grow
Where You Are in Atlanta, Georgia, and Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, New
York, where people of color are reconnecting to their roots in the land
and using their voices, skills, and inspired organizing to end
injustice and racism in the food system. Endless examples can be picked
from every corner of the map. While the challenges are many and their
forces are consolidated, our opportunity for change becomes stronger
with every farmer who returns to the land and grows.

Young people are moving back to the rural settings and breathing new
life into the forests, farms, and communities. In this newest vision of
agriculture, women are not only celebrated for their contributions but
are often found leading at the helm. Conservation easements and land
trusts are becoming more common, and land is being preserved and
protected from needless development and abusive management. Those who
were never destined to farm are finding their own ways of contributing
to the rehabilitation of our local foodways through volunteering,
promoting, and donating to these organizations and trusts who are
actively preserving the vitality of the rural landscapes for future
generations of farmers.

Agrarian Trust is one such organization. Through their development of
the Agrarian Commons, they work to ensure that farmland stays in
farming. This allows equity and self-determination to be returned to
communities and allows farmers and organizations to prioritize
beneficial practices and soil health. Utilizing charitable donations
from individuals concerned about the nature of our modern food system,
they are able to purchase farmland and preserve it. Often times the
farms are purchased from elder farmers and those looking to transition
off of their operations with no prospect of someone to take on their
life’s work. Agrarian Trust is able to pay the farmer a fair price
representative of the value they have contributed to the land and offer
secure land tenure to a new farmer or farming organization through a
99-year lease.

This not only protects the property from being bought up by a
non-farming entity, it also creates an affordable point of entry for
individuals who may have the skillset to grow crops and raise livestock
but not the financial cushion necessary for the initial investment in
farmland. Agrarian Trust looks to support the initiatives of small,
localized communities on land in their regions by offering resources,
support, and advice and adding at-risk farmland to the Agrarian Commons
where it can be protected and offered to the projects of the native
populations. Through their understanding of the importance of regional
and localized control, they empower the people who will be working the
land to develop their own systems of management and give them access to
the landscape in perpetuity.

I knock my boots together before I go inside, and I imagine each
small community as being part of a greater whole. I feel for a moment
the incredible diversity of projects and empowered people investing
their time and energy into the reclamation of our world and a sense of
renewal washes over my tired bones. As a farmer, I’ve spent countless
hours in nature learning and relearning the importance of the present
moment. The activity of the natural world is its intelligence, and it is
in our best interest to engage with the state of our world as is and do
our part without ever a concern for what the future may bring. Our
media outlets gain their most momentum when we are afraid, and this fear
paralyzes us and makes us feel as though there is such a thing as too
far gone.

We need the stories about how our actions are damaging our world and
its people, yes, but we also need to share the triumphs of those who
have restored damaged landscapes, rekindled the old flames of lost
towns, and those who have resurrected nourishment from a food system
running on fumes. The transformation of our foodways resides in
re-establishing the interconnected nature of the human experience. Where
diversity abounds, homeostasis builds, and each of us is invited to
find our niche in the dance of life. A food system where everyone is
engaged is a circulating energetic force where waste and stagnation are
unable to persist. Just as the natural world nests and specializes, our
choice to support one another in our crafts and expressions, even when
inconvenient, aligns our collective work with its highest order, and
this collaboration mimics the abundant momentum of our expanding
Universe.